PISCATAWAY -- From Craig Brown's viewpoint, eye-level on the RAC parquet, the Louisville press was a swarm of large, athletic bodies hounding him and Rutgers ballhandlers. Myles Mack saw them coming from different angles, ready to pounce on a mistake – a dribble picked up too early or head dropped down too soon.

It was an archetypal performance by the Cardinals, known for their pressure under coach Rick Pitino, and Rutgers found itself caught up in the web in an 83-76 loss to the 14th ranked team in the country.

Eddie Jordan had thought the Scarlet Knights would handle the pressure better than it did, having prepared for a team that forces turnovers on a quarter of possessions – the third highest rate in the country, according to KenPom. Then he watched Rutgers turn the ball over 19 times.

"Their pressure defense, they just had us rattled," Jordan said.

It began late in the first half. Rutgers had jumped out to an early lead but the end of the first stanza was its breaking point. With five turnovers over the last 3:23 of the half, Louisville turned the game around, taking a six-point lead into halftime that it wouldn't lose. And once the second-half began, the lead ballooned, reaching double-figures in less than two minutes and up to 15 points 6:29 into the half.

"I was disappointed that we didn't handle their pressure as well as we could," Jordan said. "They pressure everybody, they do a good job, but I thought we were prepared to handle it and make more plays of it."

Rutgers was able to handle it well enough in the first half, as Myles Mack buoyed the Knights. He finished the game with 19 points and four assists, serving as the main facilitator, though Craig Brown added 17 points, among four in double-figures.

Yet, with J.J. Moore getting the start at shooting guard, Mack was often the only natural ballhandler on the court against Louisville's swarming press and defense. It left him overwhelmed at times, and fatigued towards the end of the first half, as he ended the game with six turnovers.

Not that Rutgers did not make the Cardinals sweat. Louisville saw Russ Smith, its star, hit just 4-of-11 shots, but get to the free throw line 16 times.

And in the second half, the Knights cut a 17-point deficit down to seven with 4:41 remaining and kept applying the pressure. Still, the game would vacillate from there but never veered too far in Rutgers' favor, and the difference never got closer than six points.

Louisville benefited from a game that devolved into a hodgepodge of fouls and free throws. They took 46 free throws – 32 in the second half – and hit 41 of them. The two teams combined for 62 fouls in a game that lasted over two-and-a-half hours.

That Louisville hit 89 percent of its free throws was not emblematic of the squad that came in hitting just 65 percent. And Rutgers players were not so sure that they deserved them all.

"I don't know," Mack said of the free throw total, his thoughts echoed by his teammates. "I don't have nothing to say about that. I don't know how they got to the free throw line that many times. I don't think they should have."

Yet, it provided a buffer that Rutgers could not break through. Mack refused to take the game as a moral victory, eschewing progress found from losses. And for Jordan, it was a reminder of how far his program still must go, that on a night when Russ Smith struggled with his shot and the Cardinals had 17 turnovers of their own, Rutgers still fell short.

"They're good," Jordan said with a smiling. "They're good and we're trying to be good."

NOTE: Jerome Seagears played tonight despite a sprained right ankle that was originally believed would force him to miss the game, after injuring it Monday and missing Wednesday's win over Temple. He appeared for the first time in the second half and played 16 minutes...Junior Etou took a hard fall late in the game and stayed down while being looked at by a trainer. Jordan said that he was "OK" after taking a "real crazy shot to the midsection."